Last week, the Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released a disappointing synodal study group’s final report on “The Participation of Women in the Life and Leadership of the Church” that focused almost entirely on the 20th century. Surely the well-educated churchmen and laypersons behind such documents know that numerous women were active in various ways in what we can describe (at the risk of some anachronism) as “public life” for many centuries prior to the twentieth, even if they were not—as most men were not most of that time, either—voting for candidates for, or serving in, democratically elected offices?
